Getting through the Night
Beware of near invisible traps
that tie the careless in silken wraps.
Creepy arachnids, agile and spry,
each with a set of eight little eyes.
———
Spitting and spinning mouthfuls of bile,
crafty sticky-haired intricate style.
Attraction held in gluey ferment,
life ends in deadly entanglement.
———-
Moon enhances gossamer shimmer
but on this night without light’s glimmer,
when eyelid clouds over twinkles close,
I lay awake, startled from repose.
———-
Between my sleep and this unlit scene,
I feel the loss of my slipping dream.
Window opens to black reflection,
the room feels stuffy with oppression.
———–
Shapeless, nocturnal garden, a feast
for pawed and many antennaed beast.
When I hear a shuffling rustle,
heart pounces with the outside bustle.
———-
Nails click up, leap to roof from trunks,
I pull covers over my goosebumps.
Lions, skunks, imaginings all kinds
scurry through the burrows of my mind.
Elaine Anne Westheimer 